


Betsey

by ghostburr



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostburr/pseuds/ghostburr
Summary: another old one, reposting here





	Betsey

Betsey looked at the stack of papers beside her.

 _Burn them,_  the tiny voice said.  _Burn them and rid yourself of the painful memories._

They are not just painful memories. They are me. They are my husband. They are us.

_No. They hold nothing but pain._

Nothing is perfect. No one is perfect. She reasoned with herself in her old age, alone except for her thoughts. Without her children around her, Betsey was truly alone indeed. Save for Angelica.

A soft voice sang an incoherent tune from an adjoining room. 

Betsey exhaled and shut her eyes. She was old. It was almost time. What would she face when she entered eternity? The old woman could not bring herself to imagine things too precisely. It pained her too greatly to think of what could have been.

Satan was alive and well, and always had been. Had he not been personified time and time again in the hateful tirades of Adams, the cunning deceit of Jefferson, the shining, deadly glare of Burr and his aim? How could Satan not exist? Each man taking a piece of her husband with him for himself; each enemy, in his hatred, turning her husband into a monster.

She covered her face. She was not going to cry. She had not cried for close to ten years. Being sad was a part of life, Betsey knew, and an emotion that made little sense when she was being honest with herself. Being sad did not bring her husband back–and being sad did nothing to rectify his legacy.

He would be remembered. Her Alexander would not go down in history as a heartless monarchist, a self-interested banker with no compassion for the common man or a pet of the high-born. No, he would be remembered for his heart and soul and dedication to his country. He had  _died_  for that country–hadn’t he? Wasn’t that what he told her in his last letter?

Betsey convinced herself that her husband saved the country from certain destruction at the hands of a Catiline. 

In the darkest hours of the night, those were the reassurances she needed to hear to understand the private, violent world her husband inhabited. Those were the reassurances she needed to hear when she spoke out into the deadened night air and no one answered her.

_Burn them._

Betsey shook her head indistinctly, to herself. 

_What difference does it make? He is dead. He is not coming back. Those letters will not answer your prayers, nor will they keep him any more alive than he already is._

The old woman placed her arms in her lap and ignored the small voice, determined not to let it influence her. The white marble bust at the far end of the room gazed vaguely ahead–at nothing and everything all at once. 

_You knew. You knew all along._

The bust looked on, a look of pleasant concern on its face. A look of gentle, almost kind condescension, his brows furrowed, his mouth set in a soft but determined line. He wore a look, realized Betsey when it was too late, of a man who instinctively knew his fate before it was consciously manifested to him. 

_You knew, as well._

Betsey shook her head at the voice again. No, No I did not. And what could I have done? What change would I have made? 

_You were his rock._

The politics, the politics. The old woman repeated the phrase to herself over and over again, as if that would make it any more meaningful.

She was no Abigail Adams, who could follow a debate with her rapid mind and deconstruct a conniving motive faster than most of her male contemporaries. She was not a Theodosia Burr who could write treatises on Voltaire and Montesquieu and prattle away in Greek–a warped, inverted version of her selfish father. She was not a Martha Washington, who would play the role of the grand and graceful Roman Matron, holding the country together with her husband at her side. 

She was not Angelica Church, flippant and social and beautiful.

She was not Maria Reynolds, seductive and alluring and ruthless.

She was plain Betsey, with her stack of unanswerable letters at her side.

She had taken great care to separate her letters from her late husband’s. It would make her sons’ job easier, when they went about writing his biography. She had made them promise that they would do their father justice after she was gone. They had then asked if they would have access to her own letters.

No, she told them. And nothing more came of it. 

But the reasons why still eluded the old woman. She sighed and touched one of the sheets tenderly. It was almost as if she were the last one at a party–one of those awful, pretentious ones thrown by aspiring politicians–thick with fake laughter and the heavy scent of cigar smoke. Everyone else had gone home for the night. She only vaguely remembered the jokes and the catty gossip. But now that the candles had been blown out and all that remained were the memories of brightness, it all seemed rather pointless.

She never enjoyed herself, save for when her husband sang to her. She was always so sure that his songs were meant specifically for her. And only her. 

But it was a club. A men’s club. 

This only became more evident as she aged, and gained the luxury of hindsight.

Her female contemporaries never understood that, the old woman thought sadly. They never understood that those men could close the doors and lock them and not think twice. Those ladies–with their immense learning and impressive cunning–were never considered. It didn’t matter how hard they tried, who they knew, who they argued with, where their words flew off to. Betsey knew this better than any of them.

In her heart she knew there would come a day when the ladies were finally remembered, but she dared not speak it. Experience taught her, mercilessly, otherwise.

This is wrong. This is wrong. Hold out.

_Burn them._

Betsey knew that in the blink of an eye, the flick of black ink across a page, they could be reduced to an addendum. A footnote. Or nothing at all.

The first letter fell gracefully into the dying fire before her, the nagging feeling still pulling at her soul. 


End file.
